1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mobile telephone systems, and more particularly to the provision of services to individual telephone handsets.
In the present specification, xe2x80x9cservicexe2x80x9d means any service provided to a subscriber, other than basic telephony. Basic telephony comprises the connection of a subscriber""s terminal to another terminal equipment in response to dialling by that subscriber or by a subscriber at the other terminal equipment, and the associated signalling of ringing, engaged status and number unobtainable. The services to be discussed here are sometimes referred to as xe2x80x9cenhancedxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cextendedxe2x80x9d services.
2. Related Art
A feature of GSM (Global System for Mobile communication) mobile telephone systems is that a subscriber may elect to receive various services, for instance call barring, call forwarding and voice mail. Once the availability of such a service to the terminal is established, it remains available until either the subscriber or the network operator intervenes to change the set of enhanced services available to the subscriber.
United Kingdom Patent GB2304497 (Nortel) describes a system in which a user may xe2x80x9croamxe2x80x9d from one network to another and maintain the same service set (at least, to the extent that the roamed-to network supports the relevant services). In particular it relates to a method of restricting usage of services to ensure barred services remain barred when roaming. However, a particular service set may not be appropriate in all situations. In particular, a subscriber may wish to have additional services available when roaming on a network away from the subscriber""s home network. In existing systems, the subscriber must either contact the network operator and ask for the appropriate changes to be made by the operator, or modify the services by transmitting instructions using his portable telephone. This is an inconvenience to subscribers. There exist xe2x80x9cintelligent agentxe2x80x9d proposals to automate this process, for example as disclosed in International Patent Specification W)95/30317 (British Telecommunications pic), but these would require extensive modification to the network infrastructure and terminal logic. It is an aim of the present invention to provide this functionality within the existing network architecture. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to the present invention, there is provided a method of selective service provision in a mobile telephone system including at least one mobile station and at least a first mobile telephone network, the first mobile telephone network comprising a home storage means associated with each mobile telephone for storing data relating to the services to be provided to the mobile telephone; the method comprising:
in the storage means associated with at least one of the mobile telephones, storing a plurality of service profiles, and retrieving one of the service profiles from the home storage means for transmission to a temporary storage means for controlling the operation of the mobile telephone, wherein the service profile to be retrieved is selected in accordance with a characteristic of the mobile station""s current circumstances, detected by or communicated to the first mobile telephone network.
The circumstances may be defined according to which network the subscriber is currently registered with. Thus, the service provision can be automatically modified when the user roams to another network. Another exemplary, relevant circumstance is the time of day at the mobile station""s location. For instance, a subscriber may wish to limit the numbers from which he can be called during certain hours, for example sleep periods.
According to the present invention, there is also provided a subscriber information processing system of a mobile telephone network including a database record for a subscriber, the record including data defining a plurality of service profiles to be provided to the subscriber, detection means for detecting a characteristic of the circumstances of the subscriber""s mobile telephone, means for selecting one of the plurality of service profiles in accordance with the circumstance detected, and means for transmitting the selected service profile to a temporary store for controlling the operation of the mobile station.
A mobile telephone system may comprise a plurality of interconnected mobile telephone networks, at least one of said networks having a subscriber information processing system as defined above wherein the or each mobile telephone network comprises a temporary store for storing control information relating to mobile telephones currently registered with that network, means for identifying a home network for a mobile telephone, being the network whose subscriber information processing system has the database record for the said mobile telephone subscriber; means for transmitting to the detection means of said network the identity of said mobile telephone, and means for receiving from the subscriber information processing system of said network a service profile selected by said subscriber information processing system, for storage in said temporary store for controlling the operation of said telephone.
The subscriber information processing system may be embodied by a home location register as found in GSM mobile telephone networks. One characteristic which may determine the selection of a service profile may be the identity of the mobile network with which the mobile station is registered. In one possible arrangement, the first service profile is selected if the mobile telephone is registered with its home network, and the second service profile is selected if the mobile telephone is registered with a network other than its home network. The temporary storage means is preferably associated with the network with which the mobile telephone is currently registered.
The service functionality may be provided in general by a service processing system independent of a switching centre. In one possible implementation of the invention, a service function is implemented selectively in a first component type or a second component type of the home network in dependence on said characteristic. More specifically, the first component type may be a mobile switching centre and the second component type may be an independent service processing system.